Twofold Anathema
by DeadlyInformant
Summary: AU. He stares at the face so like his own, taking in the psychotic smirk over the duplicate's bleach-white face. The bone white irises stared insanely back with a desire to kill. "You thought you could just pretend I never existed and that nothing would come of it didn't you? You should have known I'd come back to take my revenge."
1. The Lure of Shadows

Anathema- "someone/something intensely loathed/hated" "exiled/denounced from the church" "something especially evil"

**Warning:** This isn't going to be a very pretty and happy fic, after all the tag is horror. So if you aren't able to stomach detailed descriptions of blood and gore please turn away from this now. This is going to be multiple chapters, leading up to the big event that's going to happen involving the main amount of gore.

So hopefully you're going to enjoy this fic and the twist taken on the Bleach verse.

* * *

A vile taste is there, invading his mouth into his very being. Feels like it's reaching deep down into his belly as his entire body aches, protests, tries to expel the disgusting taste but only succeeds in somehow drawing in more.

His body isn't even breathing now, terror arching through his waking mind as he struggles to take in a breath but more of the vileness sinks into him in a way he had never known was possible. Limbs responded only partially to him, kicking in futile efforts against the grip of whatever surrounded and pressed on him from all around.

And as he opens his eyes he sees nothing but complete blackness, as invasive as everything else he senses and suffocating him in a way this vileness can't. Terror starts to sink in as his mind fully wakes to whatever hell he might have come to, what he might have done to deserve this.

Limbs slowly returned to his control, though they continued to flail uselessly in- in- was this liquid? Straining his eyes to see through this all-encompassing blackness, he moves a hand so close to his face that he actually scrapes his cheek with his nails. The surprise has him gasping and gagging on the taste.

It was liquid, some kind of liquid he couldn't understand because how could he breathe in liquid? How could he still be alive when there was so much liquid around him- so much everywhere that it was just all in his _stomach_ and surely it was filling his _lungs_ and…

The chilling fear is what gets him moving, his mind panicking around this impossibility and driving him to flail in the liquid until he's oriented in a direction he hopes is right-side up because if it isn't this is going to fail and-

He doesn't even think as he braces his legs on whatever solid ground is under his feet now and he _pushes_, pushes with as much strength as he can manage and oh god he can feel himself moving through this blackness. Isn't sure what direction he's going or if he's going the right way at _all_ but he throws out his arms and kicks his feet, struggling to get to what he hopes, hopes, hopes is the surface because if it isn't then he's going to _drown_ despite the fact he should have already but that isn't important because…

Because there's light filtering in his eyes, light from the moon shining down on him through the liquid. And it's like a blessing he didn't believe he was ever going to get and then he's breaking through the surface of the liquid and he's coughing out everything that's gathered into his body, hurling up all the vileness that's from he doesn't know how long.

Body spasming and throat burning, he looks blearily through tear-stained eyes to see where he is. Disgust wells up within him as his hurl floats past him down whatever current is running through this and a hand is splashing it away before he can even think about it.

His senses slowly get back under control and the tears have managed to fade back into his eyes which is good because he knows that he'd never be able to wipe them off when he's already soaking wet and he'd only have made it worse if he'd tried.

Dry eyes flicker around uncertainly, trying to remember just where he is as he bobs on the surface of the water. River. This was a river, and it was the middle of the night if the moon was anything to go by. A riverbank too, one that seemed familiar to him, and something that he should remember, he thinks. Because something important happened on that bank, something that he knows he remembers but is pushing at his mind to _not think about _and then-

_He's rushing across the bank and screaming something at the top of his lungs, rushing towards someone who is standing far too close to the river and not realizing they were in danger._

_His mother is screaming at him from behind him, trying to call him back, to turn around and come back to her because it's not safe but he's not listening to her._

_Something is moving on the river, rushing towards him with sounds that set his body to ice because there's no way that belongs to a human, it doesn't even sound like an animal but some kind of monster out of the books that father sometimes reads when mother is asleep._

_A monster that wants to eat him._

_There's breath on his face and an intense putrid smell that's like something long set out to rot in a desert which is funny because he's sure that there's nothing rotting or a desert here and then he realizes that he's in the air and it feels like his middle is being crushed tightly in something's grasp._

_Blood spews from his mouth as agony sets him ablaze in a way he didn't know was possible before, intense and sharp and spreading everywhere from where his middle should be and he looks down to see it and his middle is bent inward like the men on the TV show father watches sometimes when they've been crushed by a car._

_Impossible, completely impossible and his mind can't understand it because there's nothing there and he's floating in the air and what is going on is this some nightmare where in the world is he and he can still hear his mother screaming and a voice that sounds almost exactly like his own is screaming but that's funny because he knows he's screaming as well and it's such a shock to suddenly realize he's screaming- and why is the entire world going so blurry._

_And then the world blurs further as he feels himself flying through the air and the chill of the water envelops him. Vision is blurring out now and he can feel himself sinking into the river, deeper and deeper and trying to scream the whole time even as the water pours into him and chokes him, filling him despite his silent cries for it to stop._

_Body won't respond to him and he thinks he's crying but he can't tell in this crushing abyss, feels his fingers and legs faintly twitching even as his mind is blacking out and his thoughts become spotty and everything just goes straight into…_

He's sinking again as his body seizes from the memory of drowning. Horrified understanding spikes through him, feeding fear.

He's dead. And the thought hits him with the force of a sucker punch and his lungs ache and pull in unneeded air to let out a sharp scream that rends the night and hurts his ears that haven't heard anything in who knows how long now.

Screaming for longer than he can even count in his shattered mind, until there's nothing left but a whispering attempt at a scream that feels like it's stuck on some kind of repeat and it's never going to go away.

Still making that noise even as his body fights its way onto the riverbank and he's crawling out of the water that doesn't even feel cold now that's he's dead. He doesn't get very far before his body gives out and he simply lies down on the wet ground because he can't get up the strength to move.

It sounds like there's some kind of dog whimpering near him and he raises his head so that drained eyes can strain through the darkness under the moon to seek out the source. Takes far longer than he wishes to realize that the noise is coming from _him_. Still can't stop it.

He thinks that maybe he doesn't even want the noise to go away, because it's something he can cling to that makes him think that he isn't actually _dead_ because dead people can't make _noises_ and he _can_ so he must have simply been knocked out and that means he's alright.

Though he may be young enough to believe that, deep in his heart he knows that it isn't true. That even if he was at his luckiest he couldn't have survived being underwater for that long. Tears are pricking at his eyes again and he's sure if he doesn't get it under control it's going to become worse.

That sound isn't being made anymore but what's coming out instead is some horrible stuttering babble.

"M-maaaa…. Thaaaa…. Maa…. Maaa… haaar…."

Not even sure what he's trying to say anymore, he simply lies there and lets his weak and whispery voice run until even that's gone and everything's once more silent because he can't push anything else out of his mouth. Isn't sure he could even to shout for help.

Everything felt so out of place in this world that had no meaning to him, where everything felt like shattered pieces of glass slowly coming back together and gluing itself in a way he's sure will simply break again later.

But there's no more strength left in him to try to help the pieces, and so he lets them piece together however they want.

He knows that he had a mother, and a father, and two twin sisters. Knows that his mother, he, and someone else had been going out for a walk on the riverbank like they always did, except this time it was late at night because someone had wanted to go out and see the bright full moon because it had been claimed that the moon would be red tonight. It hadn't been and that had made someone very disappointed, but mother had simply smiled and petted both of their heads to appease them and said they'd see a red moon sometime and it would be worth it.

Where mother and that someone else was now he didn't know. He wonders tiredly if they know that he's not with them now, if they're concerned about where he is or if they've tried to find him. No police are lining the riverbank, and he has to wonder. Policemen always said if someone went missing they would search for hours and days and not give up.

Had something happened that he didn't know about? How much time had passed since he had first fallen into the river?

Exhaustion was tearing into him with soft, gentle claws and he knows that if he gives up he may never wake up again but it was _just so hard_ to stay awake… He has to… has to stay awake but…

* * *

If you find any mistakes with this chapter or have some comments to make on it to improve it I'm all for hearing it in a review or a PM even. I don't want to have someone just hatefully rant at the story or what I'm doing with it though, that's just rude and nonconstructive.

I'm already working on the second chapter, hopefully I'll have it out by tomorrow.


	2. Heart of the Grave

While I know this style might be a little slow, I felt like it would be nice to keep this first pacing a bit slow. At least there's more dialogue in this second chapter, I know sometimes I get too introspective in stories, so I figured a small dialogue scene would be good.

Also, if it gets a little grating about not knowing who the main character is (Although it's probably obvious when you realize what event I was describing last chapter) just know that by next chapter I intend to make sure that our character has a name to them.

* * *

On the edges of consciousness he can sense something shifting around him, something just out of his reach that flitters away when he reaches for it, like a butterfly he used to chase while mother watched and laughed, her eyes shining with love and affection for his childish antics.

He's not sure why but the thought aches in his chest, feels like heartburn except he knows he's far too young to experience that.

A slight shift of his body causes a whimper, and he's awake now and all too aware of what's happened and there's nothing more he wants than to go back to sleep and forget everything that's happened.

He was dead, what use did he have for waking?

Except he knows that mother and father would be disappointed if he gave up, and so with difficulty he forces his eyes open against the light of the sun and his body is moving to stand against the protesting pain all over his body.

Not sure if it's some leftover ache from dying that he didn't experience last night or if it's some new side effect of continuing to be dead but his weight is lead in his bones and glass in his veins. Soft whimpers protest against the movements, yet he can't lie on the riverbank forever.

It's when he's fully standing that the entire weight of what's happened hits him and depression sinks its soft and whispery claws into his heart. Staring up at the place where his life ended is intense and stressing.

It was better, before he'd died. When he was just a nine year old and had a mother and a family and was out for a walk before returning home to have a dinner he'll never have now. Return to a family and joking conversations he'll never hear now.

Young he may be but he understood there was a reason there were no widespread stories of loved ones coming back to spend time with their family. Whatever this was he found himself in now, there was no way he was going to be able to go back to how he had lived.

His hands are on his chest now, fingers pressing tight against the spot over his heart and rubbing at the spot there that felt the sorest from the pain. A habit he's never been able to break, something his mother found adorable.

Even through the pain in his body he can sense a different kind of pain, somewhere on the top of his head. A frown flits across his face and he reaches up almost lazily to press his fingers into his hair and presses hard against his scalp. Searches for the spot that hurts the most.

When he finds it there's a pained gasp, because it feels like his scalp has been ripped open and he can feel a smooth circle of pure bone under his fingers. Hot tears are forming in his eyes and he's not sure why this is making him cry, but somewhere in his once-more splintering mind is the true realization- the true gut punch that he _has_ died because there's no way his skull could be poking out of him after all this otherwise.

That noise from last night is making its way through his throat and he squeezes his eyes shut tight against the tears trying to break loose from him. Hands are clenched tight together in front of his heart now, trying to block out the pain, to calm down, to make sense of this situation before everything once more shatters into pieces around him. He knows if it happens again he'll be too lost to pick everything back up and keep going to whatever it is he's working towards now.

Vast seconds later through oblivions of pain he can release his grip on his hands, and when he opens his eyes to look down at them he can see blood from where his nails have dug in deep.

He doesn't know why it's possible, but the sight of blood from this strange body is confusing. He's certainly dead, how can he bleed?

Utter fascination is what leads to him pressing his nails hard against his arm, causing more blood to slip through the tears that his nails cause. The pain that came with it was unexpected; he hadn't known someone dead could feel pain. Hissing under his breath, he pulls his hand away before putting it back to rub soothingly at the marks.

There's not much reason to stay here, but at the same time there's not much reason to go either. He's not sure which one he wants to do, but he knows more than anything else he doesn't want to look at the water. He's scared he'll see his skull poking out of his head and then he'll be screaming all over again and he thinks that he's had enough of screaming for the moment. No amount of screaming is going to help him in the situation he's in.

"I'm just going to go and whatever I find is what I find," he says to his hands, nodding as though agreeing with himself. He doesn't want to think about what it might signify that he would be talking to himself, he's never done that before.

Perhaps death changes people in more ways than he had imagined. Yet he thinks it isn't death that's added this to him, and that's a scarier thought.

He has to steel himself against leaving this area, because despite the fact there's no real reason to stay here he can't fight the small belief that if he does stay here his family will come back and then he'll know what's happened.

It takes more than that small belief to shake his determination to leave though, and so he crawls up the embankment onto the hill of the riverbank. Stands there and stares down across the grass at the water that claimed his life, a silent goodbye to all he once had and a greeting to all that will happen.

This time it isn't even hard to turn away from the sight and walk away from the scene, down the grass to the sidewalk there.

Once he's there he realizes that he doesn't really know where he's supposed to be going. He may remember his life but for some reason it felt like the pathways between here and home were simply gone without a trace, he's not sure if he should be going right or left, or if it's some other direction he can't tell from here. The house he would know as soon as he saw it, but getting to it…

Chews on his lip and tastes blood in his mouth, eyes darting from one path to another in indecisiveness. Whatever way he goes now will be the way that's going to stick with him for life, because he isn't sure if he'll ever be able to come here. This was the only tie he had to his life, and if he went the wrong way who knew if he'd ever be able to find his way home. It wasn't like he could ask someone.

However he knows someone special to him would never let him live it down if he stayed here forever because he was _scared_, and so he steels himself and spits out the blood in his mouth. Walks forward onto the right path and doesn't look back once, back ramrod straight despite the heavy thunking feeling of each foot hitting the ground and dragging behind him just slightly.

The grass is bright green under the sun and sways in the breeze, looking like there was a slight drizzle this morning from the wetness of the blades there. He can't tell though because his clothes aren't wet, although they might have dried in the sun during sleep.

Pavement is dark black under his feet and the sun is so far overhead there's only the slightest of shadows underneath him, which makes him curious. He can have a shadow? That kind of thing was possible? He wondered if regular people could see it, or if it would be as invisible as he must be to them.

The walk felt draining to him, and he had to plop down in the grass once again to rest what felt only a few minutes later. Although he was pleased to note the hill he'd come from was in the distance and hardly viewable from here, so that must mean he'd at least been able to walk quite a ways before needing rest.

Legs are pulled up against his chest and arms are wrapped around them so he could rest his chin on the very tops of them. Despite the fact it felt a bit sharp on his chin, he felt content and safe here. As though nothing could possibly get to him while he was like this.

It's only now he remembers something must have killed him. Something he couldn't see at the time. Fear prickles at him and the hair on his neck is rising into the air, head lifting off his knees to look dartily around him as though some giant creature was going to rush him to finish off the job it had started.

Nothing came at him, but that doesn't stop his fear. He gets back to his feet despite the effort and continues off down the path, moving faster now though it's wearing him down more than before. He wants to get as far away as he can from that place, because the nature shows he watched had said predators stayed near water sources. They stayed near weak animals to hunt them down, sometimes just for the sport of it.

He walks down the past and muses over his life. The darkest part of his heart hides his secret; he wants to test if he can remember.

His father, Kurosaki Isshin. A man who was strange, who cried over portraits of their friends and let his children watch horror movies late at night while mother was asleep. Otherwise she would get angry at him, although he'd laugh it off and still end up getting out of a scolding.

His mother, Kurosaki Masaki. The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, who could scold you and make you feel as if the sun and moon were burning and shining alternatively in your heart. Her punishments were strict but the love within them made it impossible to be bitter.

His sisters, Kurosaki Karin and Kurosaki Yuzu. They were opposites of each other, but he loved them just the same. Karin acted like a tough girl but he knew she had a soft, gooey core that put her in tears at the thought of someone being hurt. Yuzu had a gooey outer shell with a hard inner shell, she could cry at the drop of a hat but if the situation got intense she was steely-eyed and ready to take on the day.

And he… he was… he was…

Who was he?

Kurosaki who?

Eyes burning from the tears, he gnawed on his lip again and ignored the blood he once again felt. How could he not know who he was? He was a Kurosaki, he was a Kurosaki and he belonged to the family and how could he not even remember his own _name_?

Soft whimpers welled up from his very being, agonized to lose what was truly his and what made him who he was. The name that had been given to him by his family and what he'd been known by for so long. How could someone not even know who they were, yet could remember everything else?

Sheer force of will kept him walking through all this, and it's only when he realizes his insides feel heavy and tight in him that he snaps back to what's around him and he realizes his vision is blocked. With a shriek he falls back, straight out of a cart that was across the pathway.

Sharp in-out breaths, hand held tight over his heart with shirt bunched up in his fist. It takes him a minute to understand what just happened, although it makes sense to him once it does.

Of course he could go through things; it was rather silly to believe otherwise. He must be some kind of spirit if he was dead, and spirits weren't bound to the regular physical world. If he wasn't careful he could easily end up straight through someone's house, and then he'd be incredibly ashamed and embarrassed.

Someone was standing behind the cart, checking over the food in it that they would be selling for the day. He was on his feet and leaning hard over the cart counter to stare directly at them unashamed, going through the counter slightly in his haste.

"H-hello, sir, can you see me, can you help me, do you know who I am?"

The words were out in a rush of breath and didn't sound recognizable to his ears, more like a single breath with vowels garbled into it but he couldn't pay attention to that because there was a _person_ here and maybe they could-

Tongs passed through him, a cold wriggling feeling produced inside him from the action, and brings out some kind of fruit from the stand to put into a cup beside the man which was then closed and placed on top of other cups on the side of the cart.

His mouth closed with an audible click and he pulled back from the cart slowly, eyes flicking across the man's face to take in the pitch dark eyes between wrinkles and the heavy set of the man's mouth as he frowned down at the produce in his cart.

An old man, perhaps he'd been laid off and a vendor was the only job he could take up. He wondered why the man was choosing a place like this by the river, but then he realized he wasn't at the riverbank anymore. His wandering feet had led him straight into a side district near a forest. A path that people would be walking on as they went through the park. Something about the place was fuzzy in his mind, just out of his reach.

"Mister, isn't it a little early to be out here like this?" he asks, knowing the man wasn't going to hear him. It felt nice to be able to talk with someone near, as though for just this moment he wasn't some wandering spirit trying to find his way home but a little boy who'd gotten lost and curious.

"I mean, there's no one else here and they might not be here for a little while…"

The old man was frowning now and picking out some fruits with his tongs, inspecting the red berries carefully and turning them over in the air so he could see all sides of them. Some were tossed into a small garbage bag on the side of the cart opposite of the cups. He leaned in close to see inside the bag, curiously looking at the red and green berries that were mushy looking.

"I know what those are, but I just don't remember the name…" he says softly to himself, frowning just as deeply as the old man now. This must be another side effect of dying, not being able to remember certain names of things.

"I hope you don't mind if I stay here for a while, mister, I'm feeling really tired and I have a long way to go if I can find my way."

The man just grunts as he tosses away one more of the berries and returns to putting them into cups. The little boy smiles and takes that as acceptance and settles onto the ground beside the man. Watches him as he's working.

It's less lonely now that there's another person here, even if the old man can't see him. Makes it feel real, as though this was the real world and wasn't some intense nightmare he was having or that he was in hell suffering through intense periods of nothing.

There was also the belief that whatever had killed him wouldn't come to finish him off with someone else there, even if it was an old man.

It's not much later when the old man's finished packing the berries into cups. He leans against the cart and looks almost contently down the path opposite where the spirit sat.

Time passes as the spirit watches the sun and the man alternatively. The man just shifts sometimes, humming under his breath at certain intervals. Little hums the spirit can't fully comprehend, he thinks he knows what the man is singing but it slips out of his grasp as soon as he latches onto it.

Then the man straightens up and coughs in his throat as though to clear it, and he's sitting up to see around the cart at what has gotten the man's attention. There's some people walking down the path, a young boy and girl holding hands and swinging them together back and forth through the air. He wrinkles his nose at the action, recognizing them as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Said people stopped in front of the cart and the boy's hand goes up to wave at the old man standing there smiling at them.

"Jadak, it's nice to see you here today. You weren't here yesterday," the boy says teasingly to the man. The girl beside him is nodding, all smiles yet there's some worry the spirit can see in her brown eyes.

Jadak, the old man, is smiling wider at the comment and throws back his head to laugh. "Well yes, I had some troubles with the missus getting herself locked out of the house you see. Couldn't just stand here sellin' these berries all day while she's sittin' on the porch in the sun."

The girl's brown eyes soften and warm up at the same time and she tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear.

"I was so worried something had happened to you!" she says almost scoldingly, though still smiling. "You have not taken a day of work off for a month now; it seemed like such a strange thing for you to do."

Her boyfriend is lightly pressing his elbow into her side with a large grin. "Now, now, Anabel, even a dedicated man like Jadak can take a break every so often if it's necessary!"

Jadak laughs again while Anabel puffs out her cheeks and gives her boyfriend a playful glare.

"The young couple would like their favorite treats then?" Jadak asks as he looks between them with those warm pitch eyes.

By now the spirit's stood and settled between the couple- whatever space is there at least- and he's staring between these people like they're something he's never seen before and he wants to observe them as much as he can.

He has to jump back when the boyfriend's hand wraps its way around Anabel's waist and pulls her against him. Sulks as he's forced to move to the side of them to watch from that angle.

"I would like to have five cups this time, if you'd please," boyfriend says to the man, giving him a softer smile than before. Almost sad if looked at closely.

Jadak must have caught the sadness, because he's looking attentively at the boy for some kind of explanation.

Anabel cuts in before her boyfriend can say anything, "You see Daiki had a bad bout of the stomach flu last week and we had to take him to the clinic in town to get it looked at."

The old man nods in understanding, a slight smile crossing his lips for a reason the spirit can't understand.

"The man there took care of me in a way no other doctor's ever done before, and he was always joking around. Even had his kids at the office with him, most adorable bunch I've ever seen," the boyfriend adds in to his girlfriend's story.

They share a sad look however, smiles suddenly dropping.

"We heard that… that his wife died," Anabel says softly, eyes down on the ground to hide the tears that the spirit can see from his height.

"I thought they'd like to have something sweet to cheer them up, the funeral was yesterday," boyfriend says as he tightens his arm around his girl to comfort her.

Jadak is staring at them intently now, mouth pressed into a tight line across his face. He doesn't move for a few moments before snapping into action and before the spirit can blink there's five cups of berries on the cart in front of the couple.

"You take those on the house," the man says sharply, intensity in his voice making the spirit's mouth open in awe.

The couple also looked at him as though they couldn't understand what he was saying. "W-what?"

Instead of responding the old man nods sharply and points his tongs at the cups.

"That man has been kind to everyone he treats, and me'n'the missus have been treated by him for a long time now. If anyone deserves a show of kindness, it's that man and his family. "

Anabel is nodding in agreement with the man, soft hands taking the cups and placing them into the purse at her side. Her boyfriend is smiling now, unshed tears in his eyes.

"Thank you Jadak," he says softly, "it's not much to give them, but I hope it at least shows them that the world won't be ending and they can keep their heads up."

Old man Jadak nods again and points his tongs down the path the spirit had been sitting by. "You can find 'er grave that way in the cemetery. I'm sure she'd like to have a visit from people 'er husband's taken care of, to hear stories of him and to show 'er that there's people who are going to take care of her family."

Anabel nods while Daiki lightly leads her away from the cart. Daiki calls over his shoulder as Anabel waves, "I'll see you tomorrow Jadak, and don't you think you can get away with giving us free berries next time!"

Jadak is roaring with laughter now, holding his belly tight as though to keep himself together from the intensity. The spirit is already walking after the couple, curious about what they were talking about, wondering if maybe at this cemetery he can find his own grave and know his name.

He almost doesn't catch the man's reply through his thoughts. "You look after yourselves kids, and you tell that Kurosaki all that's on your mind!"

Eyes wide, he has to remind himself to keep walking as his feet stick to the ground like melted plastic. After that he's rushing to keep up with the couple, almost toppling over several times headfirst into the pavement.

His mind is a flurry of thought, racing from one to the next with no coherent order. Isn't even sure what he's thinking now, can't even tell if the couple ahead of him is talking to each other.

The grass and trees around the path turn into just trees, the path darkening as the trees block out the sun from reaching them. It feels almost eerie here, as though mortals were not meant to tread here. Even though he's not mortal anymore, it still feels strange to be here.

Up ahead he can see a large stone archway and a wall stretching out from beside the path, a small metal fence rests on top of the wall, giving it a more beautiful feeling.

It's here that the couple turns into the graveyard and walks down the graves, peeking at each headstone that rests here. The spirit also looks at them, reading different names on them and not recognizing a single one.

The couple must recognize some though, because certain graves they stop at and stare for several minutes at a time. Soft whispers bounce between them that he can't hear even when he tries to lean close to them. His mother would scold him for eavesdropping on something so personal, and so he hangs back to give them the privacy they didn't know he had been trying to ruin.

At the end of the graveyard in an area where there were few other graves they stop in front of a large headstone sticking out of the ground. It's here they both crouch down onto their knees in front of the stone and rest their heads on their hands and whisper soft words of praise and prayer.

He doesn't really understand this behavior, but that's not what's keeping his attention anyway. The stone is.

_Kurosaki Masaki._

The name on the headstone dries his mouth. Can't even swallow now, not that he needs to. Air feels tight around him, feels like when he woke up in the river and was drowning yet not-drowning except this time it's panic that's bearing down on him. A predator pouncing on frozen prey and he can't even fight it.

A noise like a dog's whimper is in his throat again, pained and so very agonized. It just can't be possible, it's not possible at all, this is some kind of terrible prank, something that someone's going to pay for because _this isn't possible_.

His mother can't be dead, not the woman who would tuck him in at night and laugh at his silly comments. The one who made him his favorite breakfast when he wasn't feeling well, who scolded him playfully when he played sick to skip school.

Who loved him beyond everything else, more than any bad or wrong thing that he could ever do. Who had smiled at him while she patted his head and said that he would see a red moon someday.

Tears are running blindly down his cheeks and he's collapsed onto his knees now. Hands shakily reach out to press fingers against the stone in front of him. Nails try to dig into the stone, trying to hurt it and tear it away and make it unreal. To show it for the fake it is.

But he can't, his fingers just pass through the stone, chills shooting up his arms even as a sharp keen comes from him.

"Mother… mother…" he whispers through the pain, trying harder now to tear at the stone. So very futile, but he needs to.

"You can't be dead…"

Distantly he can hear the couple behind him standing and walking away.

"You're not allowed to be dead!"

Pain is turning into anger slowly, molasses in his heart and mind but it's slowly turning, turning. A glacier of pain shifting against the ice underneath to become a rushing landslide.

"How could you do this to me!"

Hand lashes out and this time for a second he feels the stone underneath his nails, feels pain lance through his fingers as the stone takes in the force and sends it _back_ into him. Only feeds the monster glacier.

"I trusted you, mother! You can't just leave me like this! If you're dead then where are you!? Why did you leave me alone like this!"

Keening in his throat becoming an animal's snarl, the need to destroy this prank turning sharper and sharper.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, you can't be dead, where are you, you can't leave me alone here mother!"

The stone feels real under his hands again and this time he's able to _touch_ it and press _hard_ against it, feeling the stone of the grave give way under his hand and with a sharp CRACK it's sliding backwards. Broken in two, the stone falls to the ground behind the grave, and he's left panting and staring at what he's done.

His anger is broken just like the stone, and he gasps and isn't able to breathe now.

"M-mother… I'm… I'm so sorry…"

Choking out the words against his gasps, he trips over his feet and lands in the grass as he tries to move to the broken stone. Muffled sobs wrack his body as he lays face first in the grass, babbles for forgiveness through his tears.

Hands slide under him and he shakily pushes himself up, using his sleeve to wipe at his face and wipe his eyes dry. Quivering, he slides his fingers under the stone and tries to push it up, tries to grasp the strength that had broken it in the first place.

But it isn't forthcoming, and the stone lies against the ground despite his struggles to lift it. Frantic panic eats at his insides as he curses and struggles harder, still unable to make the stone move until he gives out in exhaustion and slumps over the headstone.

There is no stopping the sobs that wrack his body now, hands clinging to the stone under him desperately.

"Mother, oh mother, I didn't know what I was doing, please- please forgive me, oh god…"

It's a mantra in his head and voice, one he can't break. He doesn't try.

Underneath the dark trees he sobs on his mother's broken grave, pleading and crying for forgiveness for an act he didn't mean to do. Deep in his heart the beast is there, whispering from within that he'll never get the forgiveness he seeks. His mother is dead and gone.

* * *

I'm actually updating pretty quickly on this story from my regular updating schedule. Usually it takes me a while to get something else up, but this story's pretty gripping. I also have the benefit of having a close friend who's intensely interested which gives me a good reason to keep going.

Again, if there's anything strange about the story or if you think a part could be fixed up go ahead and comment on it. I'm all up for revising and editing bits of the chapter to make it better.


	3. For What's in a Name?

So as promised this chapter gives our main character a name as has been needed. We also get to see a familiar face as well!

* * *

It feels like years have passed on that gravestone, tears shed into stone itself leaving wet pools that dripped into the soil. Within those tears went his grief, and when he was done crying he could only lie there and stare down at the grass, counting each blade as his mind slugged through the post-crying haze.

There was a secret charm to getting lost in feeling sorry for oneself, and he thinks this might be the reason why so many people lost themselves into depression and ended up lazing through life half-aware in a dazed state. It was a hypnotic siren call, to just lie around pitying yourself and crying until there was nothing left inside you but a dull emptiness.

He's never been the type to pity though and he doesn't intend to start now. While it takes effort, he presses his palms to the stone and feels the cool rock grip the flesh before he pushes with all his might to force himself back onto his feet.

Through the trees comes in the last glimmers of the falling sun and he can barely make out his mother's name upon the gravestone. If he wanted to, he could pretend he had just imagined the name. But he doesn't want to pretend.

He doesn't have to look at the other grave names to know his own isn't here. Family graves go by each other and there is no grave close enough to be family.

Something feels strange in his chest, a tightness too dark to belong to him. Dark thoughts betray him as he contemplates why he doesn't have his own grave.

Could his family not even realize that he was dead? Did they not care, and that's why they didn't put his grave here? Were his memories… not real? Did he imagine that he was a Kurosaki, lost in some half-daze of being dead?

His teeth are grinding together so hard an ache forms in his cheeks and he has to force himself to stop and block out the thoughts. Thinking things like that wasn't going to help him. If he wanted to know the answers he was going to have to find them for himself, and sitting here thinking terrible things wasn't going to accomplish that.

It's then he realizes the couple he had been following has already left. He's left in this graveyard with no way to find his way home, except by sheer luck.

"This is just great…" he mutters to himself, kicking at the grass under his feet angrily. "This is what I get for getting so distracted."

But he couldn't dwell on lost chances, not when he had something far more important to work out. What his name was, how his family was doing, what he was going to do now. Those were the most important things to him and he had to find them out.

So instead of staying here amongst the bodies of the dead he makes his way out of the graveyard and down the path he came from.

Walking reminds him that his body still feels heavy, perhaps even more so. He's never cried so much before so he isn't sure if that's the cause of it but something niggles in his mind like a distant voice and tells him it isn't the case. There's something else causing this, and he's not sure whether that worries him or if it's some passing thing.

What he knows for certain is it's making his progress slower than before, and that aggravates him. A scowl forms its way onto his face as a result.

"I'm never going to get anywhere this slow…"

The path seems to stretch out longer than before, a massive winding road going out to the edge of the world far over the horizon. Thinks it's just a trick of the imagination and the moonlight.

Eventually he finds his way to where the man's cart was. The only evidence he was ever there is the indents of the cart in the grass and some scattered berries.

Once again his attention is captured by those red berries and he crouches down on the path to pick one up. Turns it this way and that in his fingers, seeing all the seeds on the berry and how it looks with the weird tuft of green on top.

He could almost remember what the name of it is but at the same time it eluded him as it did earlier.

"Those are strawberries, kid."

A deep voice says behind him, the suddenness of a voice actually speaking to him causing him to whirl around and drop the berry. Stares openly at the man standing in front of him, the man whose hair was a deep red under the moonlight, pulled back in a band that made it look like some kind of star imitation. Glasses hid the man's eyes from viewbbut they only seemed to accent the strange tattoos he had on his eyebrows.

He realizes he's gaping but he simply can't help it. Ever since he woke up he hasn't heard a single person speak to him, even though he's only seen three people. This man in his strange black uniform… he almost thought he was hallucinating.

Nevertheless his manners come back to him and he closes his mouth quickly.

"It's a… strawberry?" he asks confusedly, looking down at the berry he'd dropped. It looked sad and pathetic against the ground now, the fall not treating the rotting berry kindly.

He hears the man shifting in front of him and looks up to see him awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. Thinks perhaps he's not used to talking to people like him, or maybe people in general.

"Um, yeah. You know, people eat them?"

"Who are you?"

His question catches the man off-guard, though perhaps partially because of the rudeness of the question. He can't see the look on the man's face well enough to know if he's annoyed with it or not, after all maybe he was used to little kids interrupting him.

"Uh, isn't it proper to introduce yourself first?"

At this he blushes and looks down, playing with the sleeve on his shirt nervously. "I… I'm Kurosaki… I don't know my first name…"

There's an uncomfortable silence now and when he peeks up to look at the man he's shifting his balance as though unsure of what to say.

The man clears his throat after a few moments of silence. "Well, alright then. I'm Abarai Renji, I'm a Shinigami."

"A… Shinigami…?" he tests the word, unsure if he can believe this or not. A god of death? Did that mean… "You kill people?"

This time the man laughs at his question, as though it was ridiculous to ask. He feels irritable at that because he was asking a legitimate question.

"Well… haha… no, no, we don't kill- well we do kill things but those are evil spirits. You look like a good spirit. The only thing we do to good spirits is send them on," the man replies with a wide grin. It looks almost feral on him and for a second he wants to run away.

"Send on? Does that mean you're…. here to send me on?" he asks, eyes widening.

"Well, yeah. I mean if I don't send you on there's a chance you'll end up getting eaten and that would be terrible," he says as though he's seen it before. The spirit can't help but be reminded of the thing that had killed him, of his fear it would track him down to finish the job. The shudder can't be repressed.

"But I don't want to go on," he tells the man, feet backing off the path into the cool grass. "I have to find my family and remember what my name is."

The Shinigami is frowning now, looking closer at him than before. He thinks the man is really seeing him instead of just looking at him. "Look, that doesn't matter. You have to pass on; all souls have to pass on."

He shakes his head wildly in response, fear thrumming through his heart and into his limbs. "I can't pass on yet, I have to find my family!"

At this the Shinigami pulls out a wicked-looking sword and the fear explodes in his heart, he almost can't breathe it's so strong.

"W-wait, I don't want to die again!" he cries in his fear, stumbling steps back to put even more distance between them.

"Look I'm not going to kill you!" tattoo-man growls at him, irritation clear in his voice.

He doesn't want to listen to this man with the scary blade though, and so he whirls around and runs across the grass as fast as he can before he can cut him.

Behind him he can hear the man shout for him to stop but he doesn't listen to him, keeps running instead. It's when he hears footsteps chasing him that the fear mounts further. Almost chokes him now and the feeling of nausea is chill in his veins.

His body hasn't recovered its strength though and he trips over a rock jutting out of the ground, falling face-first into the cool grass. Everything blurs and he can hear himself groaning as the world tilts back to its proper angle.

The man is standing over him and pointing his sword at him, mouth tight and steely, eyes still hidden behind those glasses.

Nausea overwhelms him and his body spasms as he throws up. This time there's no food but a white substance that pours out of his mouth and clings to his body like a second skin. He can see through the substance the man is backing away and he hears a horrified shout.

Then it overcomes his face and feels like a second face over his own and the top of his head feels weighted down, he almost can't keep his body from dropping back onto the ground.

Despite it he forces himself to stand on shaky limbs.

"Fuck, you're a Hollow!?" the Shinigami roars at him in disgust. The tone strikes a chord within him, causes his mouth to curl nastily and a rumbling growl thrums out his throat.

The blade is coming towards him almost in slow motion and he has enough time to jump over it, something far more agile than he's ever believed his body can accomplish. It comes again immediately after and this time he's ready and catches the blade in his hand, twists to force it out of the man's hand and it ends up flying through the air to land in the grass.

While the man is distracted grabbing for his sword he takes the time to run, quicker this time. Now his body doesn't feel like it's weighted down in lead, in fact it feels light, weightless and it's easy to simply run across the grass.

He's even able to jump into the trees and run from branch to branch with no effort at all, disbelief drawing a laugh from him and he nearly topples off the tree at the deep and echoing sound.

Thinks it must have something to do with what happened with the Shinigami, and he remembers what he was running from to begin with, having gotten distracted with his newfound strength. There's no footsteps after him and he thinks he must have given the man the slip.

That calms his stuttering heart and he lets himself drop down to the forest ground and finally relax.

And then he realizes he's lost himself in the forest and the panic starts all over again.

Something deep in him responds to the panic, feels like something is whispering in his ear from inside him. It's muffled but there though he doesn't understand what it's saying.

His body responds though and before he knows what's going on he finds himself lunging into the air and _hovering_ there. This time there's nothing he can do to stop the startled scream because he's _hanging in the air_ and he's _going to fall_.

That something is there again and it feels like he's being scolded for his fear. He swallows it down and pays more attention to what's going on, to the way it feels there's ground underneath him and he isn't falling like he'd thought.

Whatever had guided him was gone now and he's disappointed he wasn't able to thank it for its assistance. It's only when he's walking through the air and looking at the forest under him and searching out the lights of the city that he realizes with horror that _something had responded to him_.

He's not sure how to take the idea that something might be inside him that wasn't _him_. Instead he simply files away the information to look at later. Right now he needs to track down his home with this new birds-eye view of the world, he can't stand here and think about what might have helped him.

It isn't long at all before he's found the lights of the city and is walking over the buildings below him. He can see the school he went to from here, although it doesn't help him pinpoint where his home is. Doesn't let it get him down though because with this he can check a lot of the city at once and find his home quicker.

The moon shines down on him through the clouds and he smiles back at it. It feels like a friend, the first thing that had greeted him when he woke into this dead life. Once more it feels like the moon was blessing his endeavors and he felt like he couldn't possibly fail now.

His back keeps being brushed, but he pushes it off as the wind. It was stronger this high up than it was normally on the ground.

He's more distracted when he realizes what he's looking at is his _home_. His _home_ he had feared he'd never see again.

The excitement turns into horror when the ground beneath him gives out and he falls through the air to the ground. It feels like his entire body has shattered upon impact and he can't even cry in pain as his mind swims through near-consciousness.

When he comes to he's on his back staring up at the sky through wavering eyes, vision dimmed from pain. It goes away slowly as he watches the clouds moving through the sky until he's able to muster up enough strength to sit up.

Twinges of pain bolt through his spine and he cringes and closes his eyes tight to block it out. When he's managed that he ambles to his feet, limbs trembling and nearly giving out under him.

His gaze is on the ground, his mind dazedly picking out pieces of what looks like white porcelain around him. Muses over whether someone's dropped a teacup set here today.

He forgets the pain when he remembers what had distracted him and caused his fall in the first place. Pain bursts through him as he whirls around to stare at his home.

The pain is bared with a grimace as he walks through the fence around his house, walking up the walkway to his front door. He almost knocks on the door out of habit but stops himself at the last second when he remembers it wouldn't have mattered either way. After all, he was a spirit and he'd probably end up just going through the door as it was. Even if he hadn't no one would have heard his knock.

So he foregoes common courtesy and walks straight through the door.

"I'm home…" he whispers softly, ears straining to pick up any noise within the house that wasn't his own.

It was like everything that had happened was a dream and he was coming home from being out too late, he could delude himself into believing his mother was going to come down the door with his father clomping down the stairs right after her. That his mother would give him her scolding glare at being out so late while his father laughed it off and said it was just what normal children did when they were feeling rebellious.

He could delude himself, but he wouldn't. Tears brimmed in his eyes but he didn't let them fall, not here where he was so close to knowing everything he needed to know.

It takes a few minutes to reign in his emotions. All that remains of his turbulent emotional state is a tremble in his body, and even that was going away.

The house is silent in the night, everyone must be asleep. That was rather good though because it meant no one would get in the way of him rifling through things.

His first destination is the kitchen, mostly because he's worried how his family has been eating since he and mother died. He still doesn't know if he's supposed to be able to interact with objects in the physical world, so he's stuck poking his head into the fridge and the pantry to check on what's in them.

It looks more desolate than what he remembers, perhaps because mother had always been the one to get the food for them. Yuzu would probably pick up the slack; she had shown a fondness for mother's cooking since she could first understand what cooking was. At least he hoped she would be able to, he didn't think his father would do it well enough.

When he pulls his head out of the fridge he notices the note stuck on the door. The other things stuck to the door are pictures of the family, of himself smiling wide at the camera along with his sisters. Some are of mother and father together, others only have mother or father with them. All of them are happy and smiles, he wonders if they're that way now.

The note isn't that big but it's the only paper on the fridge and so it catches his attention rather easily. His father's messy scrawl is on it, something about doctor's having terrible handwriting his father had always claimed. Although personally he thought the man was making an excuse because he couldn't write well.

_Take Ichigo and the girls to Masaki's grave._

A simple note, something his father must have wrote down just to remind himself because the man was constantly forgetting things. While before mother would tell him if he was forgetting something he didn't have that crutch now and this was probably his father's way of coping with things.

But wait. Ichigo? He looks hard at the pictures on the fridge, eyes widening as the realization starts to hit him.

_He_ was Ichigo. Kurosaki Ichigo, his name. It wasn't strawberry like people teased though, it was 'one who protects'. He remembers because the difference is all in the kanji. Remembers shouts at other children teasing about his hair color and his name.

A wide smile breaks onto his face as he clings to the fridge's handle, grip tight on it. He knew what his name was now; he was Kurosaki Ichigo. The intense relief rushing through him has him leaning his forehead against the fridge, breathing in and out slowly to allow the happiness to fully sink in.

He can't even control himself as he rips away from the fridge and hops right over the table, shoes pounding silently against the floor as he runs through the living room and straight up the stairs. Not sure what he wants to do right now but he thinks he might go to his sisters to hug them and tell them how much he loves them despite the fact they can't see or hear him.

There are several doors up here and he knows each of them by heart. On one door was a plaque that read "Yuzu and Karin" and the one opposite it read "Isshin and Masaki". The door furthest from the stairs read "Ichigo".

He's not sure why but the door attracts his attention and he can't help but be drawn towards it, walking straight through it into the room that was his. The bed is still there and there are toys and books scattered around the room, but something feels off. There's something wrong here that isn't what he remembers, something big and important he can't remember but he doesn't let that bother him.

Seeing his toys again excites him and he wants to play with them all over again even though he knows he can't interact with them as he is. There's a shifting sound of blankets moving and a soft whimper from a definitely male voice, causing him to freeze and stare around with wide eyes.

A lump on the bed attracts his attention and he feels angry that someone would dare sleep in his bed as if they owned it, just because he was dead didn't mean someone could take what was his as if he'd never existed.

He moves towards the bed to give this person a piece of his mind, hand reaching out to grab the blanket and pull it away, thinking that perhaps it's emotions that make him able to touch things because wow he'd moved the blanket and then his mind freezes.

The face that's slack in sleep is his own. He's lying down in his own bed and sleeping as if there's nothing wrong in the world and he can't understand what he's looking at, that's him right there but he was also here. He was dead, who was this person that dared take his looks and his place? He was going to kill them for this!

The voice from inside him is rising up in response to his anger, whispering in his ear that he should take his hands to this imposter boy and rip his arms off and then his legs. Then the rest of him could be taken apart piece by piece.

His hand hovers over the boy's face, tilting his head as he listens intently to the voice's suggestions and when he moves his hand closer to actually touch him there's a sudden scream in the room.

"_Kurosaki Hideaki, you leave your brother alone!"_

A startled gasp tears from him as he rears back from the bed and the fake on it, hand going over his heart to press hard at it to get his heartbeat back to normal and his breathing to even out once again. Where had mother's scream come from?

He looked around in alarm, searching for his mother in the dark room but he couldn't see her. Had she been there at all?

He hears her again, this time from out in the hall. She sounds scolding and he worries she's angry at him for his dark thoughts.

"_You apologize to your brother right now young man; it's mean of you to steal his toys."_

Feet take him into the hall and down the hallway towards the stairs and when he peeks down the stairs to look at the living room he can see the faint outline of his mother and two small boys on the floor. Both of the boys look exactly like him and he can't understand why that is.

One of them is scowling up at mother with his arms crossed; refusing to listen to what she's telling him. In one of his hands is a small toy car the other boy is staring at intently with tears in his eyes.

Mother gives the scowling boy a sharp, reprimanding glare.

"_You know we got that toy for your brother, you don't even like cars. Look, your father and I even got you your own Lego set just like you asked for. But if you're going to be a bad child we won't give it to you…"_

At this the boy looks alarmed and instantly holds out the toy car to the other boy who takes it and holds it tight against his chest as though the angry boy will take it away again.

Eyes turning away, the boy tightens his crossed arms and mutters under his breath. _"'M sorry Ichigo…"_

The other boy nods slowly and bites at his lower lip. _"It's okay Hideaki…"_

And then mother is clapping her hands and turning away from them_. "Okay, that's much better! Now Hideaki why don't you come with me and we'll look at that Lego set."_

The room is dark once again, the memory fading as quickly as it had arrived. He's not sure what could cause a memory to physically appear but that's not important to him right now.

Who were those two boys? Why did both of them look exactly like him? Why… why would two people look exactly alike?

And then the answer hits him, something so simple. It came from the whisper in his ear that sounded impatient with him.

Twins, identical twins. He was one of a pair of invisible twins. His heart is beating faster now, confusion making it hard to breathe once more.

Twins. Twins. Like Yuzu and Karin, except they looked exactly alike. _Why was there only one bed? Why were there only pictures of one boy?_

He can't wrap his mind around this. He's lived in this house for nine years of his life and now that he looks around there's no sign of the existence of any boy but one here. It's as if Kurosaki… Kurosaki Hideaki, which he now accepted he was, had never existed at all. The only proof he was real was that he was standing here staring down into his living room.

Were they… ignoring he had existed? Had they decided the pain of his death had been too much to stand to the point they simply wrote him out of existence entirely to cancel out the pain?

That seemed strange considering his father still had pictures of mother everywhere. Why was he the one ignored and not her?

He walks back down the hallway to his old room, noting wearily that the plaque should say "Ichigo and Hideaki". They'd also gotten rid of the special plaque mother had made for them. His heart hurt now more than it had at any point since he had awoken in the river, lost and left forgotten by everyone.

To have your entire existence denied by your own family was something he had never contemplated before. He had imagined they would feel terrible he had died, they would be upset and broken at losing not only him but mother as well. This he had never believed possible, had never thought his family had it in them to deny his very existence.

There's a feeling curling in his stomach that feels heavy and weighted down. He's not sure what this feeling is but it makes his blood boil and his fingers curl into fists. Nails dig into his palms and he glares down at the sleeping boy on the bed, sleeping soundly and innocently without a care in the world for his dead brother who had struggled just to make it here.

He wanted to strike him, to make him feel the pain Hideaki was feeling right now. Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. Mother wouldn't have wanted him to attack her other son, no matter what Ichigo had done to his brother's memory.

Bile rises in the back of his throat and he wants to throw up. The mirror in the corner of the room catches his eye and he stares in horror at the reflection. It was a mockery of everything he had ever been and the testament of what he'd become. He fled from the image, straight out of the house that had been his home his entire lifetime.

Out of everything he'd ever known, blindly ran and didn't look back once.

* * *

Yeah I'm going to assume that I probably tricked most people on who the main character actually was. Probably thought it was Ichigo, as Hideaki himself mistook himself as. (And for those of you wondering, Hideaki is my name for Hollow Ichigo. So it's not just a random OC that I made up on the spur of the moment)

If there's any questions or comments on the chapter I'm free to listen to anything as usual. Hopefully you're enjoying the fic as it is so far.


	4. Into the Dizzying Abyss

So here's the fourth chapter. And I have to say this thing really hates following what I want it to. Then again that tends to be the problem I have with writing, the story and characters go where they want and screw you if you want it another way... Oh well!

* * *

The forest was a wonderful place to hide, even if what you wanted to hide from happened to be yourself. Deep under the branches of the trees it felt like a cool haven, tree limbs catching the light of the moon and leaves dispersing it. As if nature itself was keeping any light from reaching him.

Leaves rustled in the breeze and whispered words of comfort in his ear, promising to protect him until he no longer needed it.

Deep in these shadows Hideaki felt more comfort than he thought was possible in this afterlife. Despite the darkness around him he kept his eyes closed as he rested his chin on his arms, crossed tight around his legs with nails digging in.

He didn't want to open his eyes again. Opening his eyes meant possibly seeing what he was. Since he had awoken he hadn't taken a single second to ponder what he looked like, hadn't even taken in the change in his appearance when he saw his legs or arms.

Maybe it had been willful ignorance. He's pretty sure it was, Hideaki had always been good at ignoring something if he didn't want to pay attention to it. But there wasn't much one could do to ignore a mirror, the very essence of what you looked like and who you were staring back at you.

And so he tried to keep himself from seeing it again. Those black eyes, so unreal and unnatural and so very _inhuman_. The white irises, something that should never be possible, and something he'd never heard of in any creature of the animal world. It was almost demonic, the way they'd looked with not even an ounce of emotion in them but a thick need for something that set Hideaki's skin crawling.

Maybe he could have gotten over that, could have pretended it had just been a trick of the light in that darkened room.

But he couldn't pretend he hadn't seen the horns. The giant horns coming out of his head with wicked-sharp edges he was sure could slice something that brushed them. Even now he could feel them on his head, trying to drag him towards the ground. They were far too big for his tiny body, seemed to belong to some kind of monster that only existed in the depths of his nightmares but now was here. Not only here but it was _him_.

And his skin… His skin was so deathly white. Perhaps it was a side-effect of having died, he's not very sure. Hasn't seen anyone like him, even that Shinigami had felt so very different. Inviting and relaxing but at the same time he set his nerves on fire and made his body tense up and want to run away. It was such a strange opposition.

Hideaki wanted to forget it all. He wanted to bury himself in the ground and never see again. Lose himself in memories of his family, of being Kurosaki Hideaki and laughing with his twin and their younger sisters. Of mother and father grinning along with them at their playful jokes, or glaring sternly when Hideaki had made his sisters or brother cry.

He'd always been the roughest out of his family, always causing trouble in one way or another. There had been nothing he could do to stop himself, it was like he needed to do something or he'd go crazy surrounded by pure happiness.

If he was being honest with himself he'd always known deep down something about the behavior was wrong, it wasn't natural to want to ruin good cheer because you've had so much of it you wanted to puke because you were overfilled and choking on it. No one he'd ever seen before had ever seemed to have that problem, no one but him.

A choked sob broke through his silence, shoulders shaking as he fought back the tears from coming. They made his eyes itch and burn and he didn't want to move to wipe his face this time.

Perhaps he'd always been the monster, and even as he wants to stop himself he just can't bring himself to. There's nothing he can do to stop the pouring despair from eating at every defense he had and breaking in, settling inside his heart as though it was its proper home and he'd only thrown it out and changed the locks.

Certainly he'd never been human before, how could he have been? What human wants to break happiness when they've had too much? Humans bathed in happiness, they rejoiced in it and tried to spread it to every person they'd ever interacted with.

Hideaki had never wanted any of that. When his sisters had their last birthday party he'd been unable to last through the entire party without accidentally upending the table and spilling the cake all over the floor. Mother had been devastated and father had scolded him fiercely for it but they believed it had been an accident, and at the time he'd believed it too.

Now he wasn't sure if he hadn't done it on purpose.

"I'm a terrible person," he muttered against the skin of his arms, feeling the cool skin on his lips and hating how it felt like death.

"No, _I'm_ a terrible person," something purred from behind him.

Fear shot through him and he jumped onto his feet, nearly toppling over at the rush of dizziness that slammed into him.

And then something really did slam into him and he was knocked onto the floor, something hot and wet on his face and dripping off it at the same time.

There was a dull searing pain in his middle and he realized the warmth was blood, his own blood. There was a tugging sensation in his belly and he shot his hands down to grab at whatever was on top of him.

His hands touched wet warmth and a hard surface, little twinges running through him at whatever the thing was doing to him. The fear was what drove him to pull back a hand and slam it hard into whatever that surface was, feeling something crack under the power of his punch.

The thing on top of him released a shriek in his face and the weight was suddenly off him. Ears ringing, he rolled over and almost threw up at the nausea that swam over him. Pushing through it, he got onto his feet and found himself barely able to stand.

"W-what are you!?" he shouted as his slick hands clung to a tree to keep himself standing up.

The thing laughed again, it sounded like it was coming from everywhere all at once. It grated on his nerves, made his body twitchier than it already was. Hot warmth was creeping through his body, starting from where his belly was and where the blood had come from.

"I'm the one you're going to be a meal for!" it cackled and the trees around him swayed, leaves whispering and covering whatever movements the creature was making in the forest.

There was no way Hideaki could stay here, not when this… thing wanted to eat him. He wasn't sure what he could do against whatever it was but he certainly couldn't fight when he couldn't even see.

Making a break for it he lunged into the air through the trees, feeling the leaves and the branches smack him on his way up but the momentary pain was worth it when he burst through the canopy and swayed in the air above it. He was afraid he would end up crashing back onto the ground but it was far better to after-die by fall than by…

Oh god, his stomach hurt so badly now and he looked down to see the damage.

A revulsed sound crawled out of his mouth as he saw. It was like his belly had been torn open and his insides… That thing had really been _eating_ him!

"O-oh god, I'm gonna be sick…" he mumbled as more nausea and dizziness hit him and he sank down onto his knees in midair.

He had almost forgotten the creature through the pain and the horrified disgust. Hideaki regretted not paying attention to it as sharp claws grasped his shoulders and then dug _in_.

This time he shrieked in pain as the thing carried him further up into the air and there was no comforting feeling of not-ground underneath him as the real ground disappeared through the clouds. He was so far up he could see the stars brighter than he ever had before, but that was no comfort at all.

Because he had looked up through the sick warm pain and saw the thing that had him in its claws. And it was a monster, a monster with a large white mask and sharp claws and wings as big as anything he'd ever seen.

He opened his mouth to beg it not eat him and found himself swallowing a scream as the claws let go and he fell.

Straight through the clouds and tearing wind, into what felt like the worst pain imaginable even as everything blacked out.

}-{

There were soft crunching sounds and a dull pain that brought him back to reality, his body jerked as something moved him and there was another crunch.

This time the pain accompanying the sound was a sharp knife in his head and he kicked his legs as his hands moved up to push at whatever was on top of him.

Pain in his hand and he pulled it back, a whispery scream coming from him as his eyes opened and he saw the creature standing over him.

Its white mask was stained with blood and Hideaki dazedly realized it was his own blood. Except this time it wasn't just eating his insides but it ate two of his ribs, one of them was still in the thing's mouth and it grinned wider at his stare and swallowed it as though to taunt him.

Something deep inside him was rising along with the horrified terror, the pure fear of being helpless as he's being eaten alive by some monster.

This time when his hand reaches towards the monster there's power behind it and the thing squawks when his fingers_- claws now they're claws why are they claws_- break through that mask and grab hold of it.

That white liquid is spewing from his mouth again and covering him, this time he watches through what feels like a muffled haze as it not only covers him but becomes a sort of armor over him. Black lines are forming on the white armor, spreading down across his chest and to his belly over the armor that now protects his damaged stomach.

It spreads over his arms under his sleeves and a black glow surrounds the hand that's gripping the creature's mask.

The thing shrieks and struggles to get away yet the strength isn't enough to budge Hideaki as his claws tear further into the mask, sharp cracks spreading across the thing and splintering into pure white.

And then Hideaki moves his hand and the entire creature is in the air before it slams back into the ground by him. He's on top of it before he even has to think and that liquid is once again covering his face except this time it doesn't even feel like a second face. It's _his_ face now.

A soft growl is rumbling in his throat, an unearthly and inhuman noise that grows by the second as he leans into the creature's masked face and releases an earth-shattering roar that thrums throughout his entire body and jars his bones, intensifying the pain in his belly but at the same time making him feel stronger than he's ever felt before.

"Stop this, what are you, you're just a Plus how can you have Hollow-"

The thing's rambling makes him angry and he does the only thing his narrowing mind can think of and bites _down_ into the thing's shoulder. Tears through the skin there and brings forth warm blood that splashes into his mouth and down his face and keeps biting it without mercy until the even the creature's screams have dwindled into nothing.

And then Hideaki come back to himself. Comes back to finding himself acting like a monster and he throws himself back off the thing and pukes into the grass.

Stares wide-eyed at his shivering hands which look cracked and then they do crack as that armor breaks off him. The rest of the armor follows after and he feels as the last of it leaves his face, until there's nothing but himself there.

The pain comes back and he lies on the grass and cries through the pain until there's not even crying but welcoming darkness.

}-{

Birds are chirping in the nearby trees when he comes to, swimming up through the depths of his unconscious until he's back in his body and all the weak aches that come with it.

Hideaki doesn't want to do anything but he forces himself onto his back and looks wearily down at his own body, only dimly surprised to see his stomach has healed a lot since last night. The rules for healing in this new body must be different. His stomach is still somewhat torn open though.

He looks around tiredly and notes the thing isn't by him anymore but the grass still has splashes of blood all over it. His own and the monster's, of course, he remembers with more nausea.

There's nothing left in his belly and so it only ebbs and breaks back down into nothing and he closes his eyes once that's gone, content to lie there and never move again.

Life didn't want him to do that apparently because something moves through the grass by him and he has to lift his head to see it.

Shock smacks him in the face as he watches the thing from last night walking towards him, no longer bloody but mask still cracked in and shoulder still torn open though it looked as healed as his stomach.

"You're a lucky kid," the thing says to him and while its voice is cold Hideaki can hear an undercurrent of… respect maybe? The world has turned on its side, hadn't this thing wanted to kill him?

Whatever's on his face now the thing only laughs at and settles down onto the ground by him. It feels so surreal Hideaki just closes his eyes again and wonders if he's having some insane dream.

"Whatever you are, you must be pretty strong," the thing says despite him trying to do his best to tell it to go away without actually doing so. "Not only did you survive that many bites but you were able to defeat me. Not many can claim that, especially not a simple Plus."

Plus. What did that even mean? He was a human, or at least he had been. Was this thing insane and talking in riddles or something? The only plus he knew was actually called addition and it had to do with math, or the other one that had to do with magnets.

"I'm not… some stupid math thing…" he tries to spit at it in anger but only musters enough energy to mutter out the words. The thing must have heard him because it's laughing again.

"Oh you must be new then, and that just makes it even more astonishing. You don't even know what you are, do you?"

"If I knew what I was do you think I'd let you continue talking about stupid math terms?" And there's the bite to his voice he had wanted the first time.

"Well of course not," it says back in a plain no-nonsense voice and Hideaki is once again hit by how utterly absurd this was. Not only did this monster understand Japanese but it also was able to hold not only a normal conversation but also understand the nuances that humans put into their words for communication.

Hideaki was absolutely sure his afterlife couldn't get any stranger than this.

"I'll explain it to you simply then, you're a regular soul that died," it said in that voice that Hideaki was starting to realize was rather snooty and pompous. For a second he wanted to punch that mask again and break it but he let the urge go.

"I could have told you that myself," he says with the best sneer he can manage under the circumstances.

"Yeah, but you didn't know the proper term for it, you little snot. That's called a Plus. And I'm called a Hollow."

He thinks back to the Shinigami and the look on his face when he vomited that white liquid.

"_Fuck, you're a Hollow!?"_

"That Shinigami called me one…" he murmurs almost to himself but the thing- the Hollow- shifts and stares intently down at him. And then Hideaki can see through the holes in the mask that the thing's eyes are almost the same as his, except the irises are yellow instead of white.

"Yeah, you have some Hollow powers. It's kinda weird. I can tell you're a normal Plus yet…" it shrugs those giant shoulders, its wings shifting behind it.

The absurdness of normally talking with the thing that had been eating last night almost puts him into hysterical laughter. Knowing that the Hollow was just as normally talking back to him after he had tried to eat _it_ was what put him over the edge.

The Hollow simply waited for the laughter to end and that sobered Hideaki for a reason he didn't know.

"What's a Hollow?" he says suddenly, wanting to know why the Shinigami had looked so horrified and had then tried to kill him.

"We're humans. At least we once were. We don't have hearts anymore, as you can see from this," the Hollow points to a giant gaping hole in its chest, something Hideaki hadn't even noticed. He stared at it openly, the Hollow didn't seem bothered.

"You had it too, when you were wearing that armor," the Hollow says absently, masked mouth turning up into a smug smirk at Hideaki's horrified face. "Only during that though, so no need to get terrified."

"This is…" Hideaki didn't have words for it.

"Heheh, probably hard for you to wrap your head around. Typically someone becomes a Hollow by being bitten by a Hollow as a Plus or by staying on the Earth too long and losing their heart over time."

"That's why the Shinigami didn't want me to find my family…" he mumbles. Even though he knew why, from what this Hollow was saying he wouldn't have turned into a Hollow for long enough he could have found his home instead of being coldly ignored.

The Hollow laughs and his giant hand reaches towards him, Hideaki cringes and waits for it to tear his face or head off but it only pats him on the head.

His confusion is apparent and he doesn't bother trying to hide it this time. This situation had started as absurd and was quickly rolling downhill from there.

"I'm not going to kill you," the Hollow says, voice quieting, "there would be no point in trying to eat you now."

"Why were you going to eat me before then?" he asks quickly, heart thrumming the beat that was quickly becoming its favorite, fear.

"Because it's what Hollows do," it says simply. "We eat Pluses and other Hollows, all so we can evolve further and get stronger."

"Evolve…?"

"Most Hollows don't look like I do, they look like real monsters. Those are regular Hollows, I'm an Adjuchas."

"Adjuchas…" he tastes the word in his mouth, rather liking how it rolls around on the tongue and almost makes it hard to say with the way the consonants are right next to each other.

Now that he's actually paying closer attention to the sitting Hollow he notes he does look humanish. At least he looked like a giant of a man who simply happened to be wearing a giant mask as well that was cracked all over. The wings weren't human of course, but he obviously wasn't human as it was.

Feathers flowed down from the thing's neck to his shoulders and down what little of its back Hideaki could see from here. There was even a bit of feather along the thing's wrists as well.

"Are… Hollows animal-like?" he asks curiously as he watches the way the feathers flutter under the breeze. Birds were always one of his favorite animals.

"Actually yes, most Hollows look like an animal until they get to the Vasto Lorde stage, which is also the last stage of a Hollow's evolution mind you. There are hardly any of those as it is though."

"You look mostly human," he points out and the thing gives him an almost sad, wry grin.

"Why yes, an Adjuchas is the last step before Vasto Lorde. I'll never reach that now though."

The thing's tone is so sad and wistful Hideaki sits up despite the twinges of pain that ache in his belly so he can get a better view of the thing's eyes through its mask.

"Why's that?" he asks, voice as soft as the Hollow's now.

"Because you bit me," it says so matter of factly and without any malice or anger it almost blows Hideaki away. This was a creature that supposedly didn't have any heart and yet it had no anger towards the one who had ruined all its apparent hopes? He wondered how that could possibly be true.

"Why would me biting you make that impossible?"

"When a Hollow is bit their entire evolution is disrupted and they can never evolve further. A Vasto Lorde can even drop down to an Adjuchas if they don't eat enough," he says with another wry grin. "Isn't good for them though, considering they can't evolve back when that happens. Oh and then the other Adjuchas will gang up on them because the Vasto Lorde's typically reign over the rest of us."

"So…" Hideaki says slowly as he bites his lip and stares up at the thing that had stayed with even him after he had attacked it, had looked after him and perhaps might have even protected him even in its weakened state. "What… happens to you now?"

It looks surprised and stares at him for what feels like hours but can only be a few minutes.

"I go back to the Hollow world and rejoin the fray for survival there, I suppose."

Hideaki sits on the grass and stares down at his hands, wondering what that must be like. Fighting to survive and then having everything you've worked for stopped from a simple bite. Even if these creatures didn't have hearts, where was the fairness in that? Not for the first time since his afterlife he wonders if there was such a thing as God. Whether it was cruel instead of kind.

"Would I be allowed to go there?" he asks finally as he looks up at the thing. It once more gives him that look, except this time it seems more considering than surprised.

"You might be able to," the bird Hollow says slowly, mouth grimacing as though he was regretting saying this at all. "But you'd be hunted down by many of the Hollows who would want to eat you. You're not very good at protecting yourself unless you're already in pain it seems."

"I can learn how to better protect myself, then!" he says quickly, hands clutching at his jeans tight. "I can't stay here as it is; if you attacked me then surely other Hollows are going to want to eat me too. And there might be… there might be more Shinigami and they might get rid of me. I may not have much to live for, but I don't want to die again."

"That's how life is for most of us Hollows," he replies to him with a dark chuckle. "Most of us don't even know why we're surviving but we do it all the same because fuck the world, it wants to destroy us and we won't accept that. We'll live on and find some reason to live, we'll make one if we have to."

Hideaki's eyes are wide as he takes in the bird's advice, swallowing hard as he thinks over the meaning of the words and how much they ring true to him. Just because he didn't have a reason to live didn't mean he had to die…

"I want to come with you," he says quickly, standing up on shaky legs but standing all the same despite that.

The Hollow stands with him and towers over him, all muscle and terrifying power that could crush him in an instant. Could eat him just like it had done last night Yet the eyes that looked at him through that cracked mask had no malice in them, only amusement and even a slight fondness.

"I do believe you'll manage to find a way to survive even amongst the Adjuchas of Hueco Mundo," he says softly and Hideaki wants to close his eyes and let the words wash over him.

This Hollow had stayed to watch over him after they had tried to kill each other, somehow that made him feel closer to this creature of death. He had a feeling Hollows didn't do that for just anyone and for this one to do it for him meant something.

"I'll do whatever it takes, and I'll find my reason for living," he breathes out a promise, watches as that mask lifts into a sharper and almost dangerous smirk.

"We'll see about that," is all the bird says as he turns from him, "or else you'll die."

The something deep inside feels warm now, feels like acceptance and excitement and burns even brighter as the sky before them tears apart and a yawning black abyss is in front of them.

The Hollow steps through it without flinching or looking back and Hideaki is left standing in the grass with a torn yet healing stomach where the Hollow had been eating him.

He could stay here and not follow the Hollow that might have certain death and revenge waiting for him. Stay and wander, eventually become a Hollow's snack or get killed by a Shinigami.

Hideaki holds his head high and walks through the torn sky after the Hollow, not once looking back at the green and the sky he's leaving behind. The leftover remnants of a world that no longer held his heart.


	5. Home to the Dark

So this one took a little longer than what I would have wanted. If anyone who's interested in this story sees me taking longer than a week to update, please shoot me a PM reminding me about it. It's always a good motivator to be reminded I need to do something, especially when I get tired after work and sometimes just let things slip away.

I was talking it over with one of my friends and I decided I'd far prefer to actually flesh out Hideaki's time within Hueco Mundo, mostly because I like the journey he'll be going through and how it eventually leads him onto the path of wanting revenge, which is what the story is mainly about.

So hopefully you don't mind too much to follow Hideaki as he grows up to where he actually meets up with his family again. For now, we see how Hideaki goes through the first parts of his life in Hueco Mundo.

* * *

The portal they walked through was long and silent, something straight out of a science fiction movie. Everything within the space was muffled and silenced; Hideaki had the fleeting desire to test if he could scream in this space or if it would be like yelling through cotton. Hardly a sound would come out but the vibrations could echo. The idea wasn't attractive enough to follow through with it.

Adding to the silence was the fact neither of them were speaking. While that might have been because the Hollow in front of him had nothing to say in the situation they were in it might also have simply been attributed to the fact that it took quite a bit of concentration to actually move about in here.

The flooring wasn't so much flooring as it was some weird undercurrent of goopy slime that sludged slowly in the direction they had come from. It took Hideaki a few minutes to realize his companion was doing something so his feet were hovering above the slime, allowing him walk on some invisible platform or something. It was even longer for him to actively manage it himself and by the time he'd done so he'd lost his sandals into the muck.

That hadn't been a very pleasant experience and his face was twisted in disgust for quite a while after that as the slime on his feet slowly dripped back down into the disgusting muck beneath them. Where the sludge was going and what it was even doing in this space that seemed to exist everywhere and yet nowhere at once he didn't know, nor did Hideaki care enough to actually waste concentration on asking.

So it was easy to believe he'd been so focused on watching his feet and making sure the invisible platform underneath him didn't just disappear on him that he wouldn't notice they had come to the end of whatever black space they had been walking through. One moment he was walking over the sludge and the next the platform underneath him had given way and he stepped down onto crunchy white material his feet and toes sunk deep into almost as far as the muck had when he'd first been walking through it.

Whereas the sludge material had felt absolutely disgusting and shudder-inducing, clinging far too much to his skin as though it didn't want to let go, these grainy things were far more inviting. They brushed and caressed at his feet as though welcoming back a friend that had been gone for too long, kind of like a puppy when its master came back from.

He brought his head up to look around him and his breath caught in his throat, he had to remind himself breathing would be a good idea right about now even if it wasn't necessary. Because the sight was something straight out of those motivational pamphlets his father was given once by those strange people in robes. The pictures within those had been breath taking as well, beautiful sights of waterfalls and mountains and even some forests but they had never called to him as much as _this_.

It was like a sea of white against a backdrop of the inkiest black wherever he looked, the white sparkling like magic underneath the pale glow of the moon that shone far above it. A desert, one unlike any he'd ever seen. And Hideaki had seen a few deserts at night on the television, none of them had held a candle to this place.

Eyes closing, he tilted his head back and breathed in the wind that brushed lightly against his cheeks and through his horns. Almost like mother's touch when she laid him to bed and kissed him goodnight. The wind filled his lungs and was a pure rush of power or affection that overwhelmed him and he leaned back as the wind continued to pour over him.

This was coming _home_. He'd never known he was missing this; it hit him so hard he was left gasping for breath, weak to the point he sunk to his knees. Fingers grasped at the little white grains of sand beneath him, curled into a fist and let those grains press hard into his palm as he continued to simply breathe in the cool air.

Underneath the halo of the moon he felt more comforted than he ever had in mother's embrace. And as he tilted his head back to stare, wide-eyed and breathless up at the moon shining down on him he realized this was what he had been waiting for his whole life. The moon above the human world had paled in comparison to this one, like some kind of shallow imposter that dared to prance about and claim they were the true thing.

A swallow, a second one to get his emotions back under control even as his throat felt tight and restricted. "Home…" he whispered through the tightness, hearing the breathless squeak that underlined the word but not caring at all because this was _home_.

Something hard and heavy clamped down on his shoulder and he jerked his head to the side to stare up at the Hollow who had led him here, the one staring down at him with softened gold eyes. In those eyes he saw the same emotions sparkling back at him, the understanding of how special this moment, this place, was.

He swallowed again and managed a weak smile up at the Hollow, feeling like his entire body was made of nothing more than paste, or like the sludge they had walked above to get here. Hideaki wasn't sure if he could manage to stand right now and so there was no irritation when the Hollow's hand wrapped gently around his upper shoulder and helped him stand, keeping him straight when his legs wanted to give out underneath him.

"Relax little one," the elder spoke soothingly, head moving to stare out over the landscape almost calculatingly, as though he expected something dangerous to come out at any moment and attack them. Considering where they were, it probably wasn't that far out there to expect it.

"I'm relaxed," he retorted, hating the sulkiness that lined the words. Something the other caught if his mask-lips curling up was any indication, but he didn't taunt him as Hideaki expected. Maybe the elder understood his feelings, maybe he didn't.

"So this is…" he started again as he looked around, pulling away from the Hollow's grasp to show he could stand perfectly fine on his own now, thank you very much. The name of this land escaped him though he'd been told it not an hour earlier.

"Hueco Mundo," his companion supplied him, voice droll and amused which he received a glare for. Not that it bothered him any considering his lips only curled more, the bastard.

"This is where Hollows live…" he said to himself, taking a few steps forward in the sand and loving how it felt around his feet. In just the few minutes he'd been in this world he felt more alive and whole than he ever had in the human world, it was like he was meant to be here. Meant to breathe in this air, to stand on this sand, to simply _exist_ here. Goosebumps rose on his legs as warmth seeped up through the cold sands into him, flooding his body with a thrum of heat as relaxing and comfortable as any heater blanket.

It should have been unnerving but it wasn't. It was more unnerving he didn't feel that way, and he looked back at his Hollow companion. The look he was giving him didn't help the unnerved feeling spreading through his belly.

"I'm not a Hollow, so why do I feel so comfortable being here?" he questioned him, kicking his foot through the sand and looking down to watch the little grains fly into the air only to settle back amongst the rest of it.

"You don't remember what I told you, do you." Hideaki gave him a withering look. Of course he didn't. "I said you had some Hollow powers, maybe there's a bit more to it than that. Whatever it is, you're as much a Hollow as a Plus can be. Makes sense you'd feel at home in the world of Hollows."

A one-shouldered shrug was the only other thing the Hollow did even as he looked past Hideaki across the dunes into the distance. He turned to see what he staring at but couldn't see anything but the dunes themselves, the grains of sand whipping up into the air as the wind took them up and deposited them further away from where they had started.

"Something have your attention?" Hideaki asked him, wryness covering his voice as he glanced at his companion out of the corner of his eye. He only got a grunt for his cheek, the Hollow's large wings spreading out behind him and whipping up sand even the wind itself couldn't pick up.

They caught his eyes; the feathers sparkled like the sand under the moonlight above them, like some kind of ethereal creature from Hell pretending to be an angel to lead people astray.

"You're a bird Hollow, obviously," he added quickly at the blank stare his comment received, "so what kind of bird are you specifically?"

The Hollow took a few moments to respond to him, wings folding back down to rest how they normally did behind his back. His fingers combed through the feathers on one wing, finding a feather or two that weren't settling correctly and fixing them back into place.

"I'm an Accipiter, or what can commonly be referred to as a hawk or a falcon by normal people who don't differentiate between the actual species within those categories," he said, sounding very much like one of the teachers Hideaki had once in school. That man hadn't expected they would know anything he was talking about but he spoke patiently and calmly which somehow managed to draw them into what he was saying and pay attention to it.

"So you're an Accipi-thing, how do you actually know that?" he said curiously, crouching down amongst the sand to pick some of it up into his hands. Once he had the sand grains he stood up and spread his arms wide to release the sand into the air, watching it catch on the breeze and dance away from them before dropping back down. The show was pretty and so he repeated the process.

"One could say I knew by trial and error but that's not true. I was quite the bird watcher when I was human and so I was able to conclude which bird I had become when I got a good look at myself one time after I fed at a lake."

There was no need to ask what "fed" meant, and while the idea might once have made him shudder in disgust it didn't anymore. Perhaps the human world wasn't the only thing he left behind when he decided to follow this man, or perhaps it had left him long before and he'd never noticed.

Whatever the answer was it didn't matter anymore because the lack of reaction was already there and he couldn't put it back inside him now.

"How often do you normally have to feed?"

His companion almost answered him but then stilled as though a gun had been aimed at him, feathers on his wings ruffling up like a cat's when they were stuck in a corner. The action caused to rise in him and he turned to see what might have caught his attention. What he saw stoke the fear into a fire.

Across the dunes in the distance a giant creature was crawling along the ground, like some kind of giant centipede except it was full black, besides the mask Hideaki could barely see from here. He remembered what the nature channels said about centipedes, how they could be poisonous and there had been a few deaths from them. If centipedes were that poisonous to humans when they weren't even their prey, how poisonous would a Hollow centipede be…?

He wasn't able to find out however because a hand closed tight around his shoulder, large fingers digging in enough to ensure he wasn't going anywhere. It was hard to hold in the shock but he managed to not jump from the sudden contact. Instead he grit his teeth to release the energy that coursed through his body as he looked up at his… friend?

Whatever the man was to him wasn't important currently, not when he was frowning like that while watching the creature coming towards them in the distance.

"That creature…" he said low as he continued to eye it as it came closer while the seconds ticked by. Now that it was closer Hideaki could see it didn't have legs like a centipede, so how could it even be moving? It was making some kind of worm movement but it didn't look exactly like a worm either.

"What about it?"

"It's time for us to get out of here; you don't want to deal with those nuisances in the first hour of being home. Trust me; they can cause the most powerful headaches if you're stuck with them."

Hideaki didn't see anything other than the centipede-worm and he wanted to question what he meant by "those nuisances" if there was only one thing out there but he didn't get the chance because he was being pulled in the opposite direction of the creature.

A scowl spread across his face but he didn't snap at him because he could understand they needed to get away from there because that centipede thing was coming straight towards them, it even shifted off its previous course to bowel towards them. The last thing he wanted was to get involved with something that seemed to annoy the elder Hollow so much.

He was almost being pulled off his feet within seconds when the Hollow's stride lengthened to ensure they got away from the fast-moving Hollow approaching them. There wasn't even a chance to squeak out for him to slow down before the Hollow's other arm wrapped tight around his stomach and pulled him straight into the air until all he was seeing was the sand flying underneath them. The wind blew at his eyes and dried them up so he had to close them tight against the force that seemed to want to tear into him as much as it could.

"W-where are we going?" he choked out against the wind even as it caught his words and tried to force them back into his throat. They were going so fast now they had to be flying faster than any car he'd seen, far faster than the creature that had been coming for them.

There wasn't a response for a few extra moments and only until the pace had slowed and the wind wasn't tearing at his eyes did it come. "We are going to my home. It is far from the area where those fools play their games, on the outer edges of the desert where very few Hollows come to make trouble."

That sounded like a rather nice place, they would have the solitude Hideaki was starting to enjoy. The wind wouldn't be ruined by others calling out or trying to attack them, which warmed Hideaki's heart because he was starting to become fond of the wind when it tickled at his ears and sounded like a friend whispering in his ears. Secrets that were for his own ears only and no one else was allowed to have.

"What kind of a home does a…" but he wasn't able to finish his question as sand enveloped them both as the avian Hollow dove directly into it with him. Sand crawled down his throat and he choked on it, feeling the grains dig into his throat and wet his eyes as he struggled against the strong urge to throw up.

It was overwhelming and he was going to puke if he didn't swallow down more of that sand, it would fill up his belly and the thought itself was so disgusting he gagged in the back of his throat, further making the course grains scratch at his throat and then the sand around him was gone and there was once again cool air. No wind greeted him however, because no wind blew underground.

His body was wracked by coughs as he spat up the sand that had gotten into his throat, gagging again when he couldn't properly get the sand out. Absently his body noticed the world around him shifting and a hard surface pressing against his stomach as fingers forced his mouth open and a cool wetness flooded into his mouth.

Again he gagged and spat it back up, afraid this time he'd be drowned instead of suffocated and the fear grew as more water was again poured into his throat until everything was dizzy and no more grains were sticking into his throat or mouth. Deep in his stomach he felt sick, a sure sign some sand had managed to be swallowed and wasn't willing to come out for him.

But it was relief enough to no longer have that sickly feeling of sand in his throat and through teary eyes he stared up at the Hollow who was watching him silently, another handful of water at the ready in case he needed it. He didn't and so he shook his head at him and his companion nodded slightly as he tilted his hand to let the water drip back into a small pool beside Hideaki's head.

It was then he realized they were in a strange underground cave system, and he could see where they had come in from. A few feet away from where he lay was a huge wall of sand as though part of the upper world had simply collapsed in on itself and fallen into the cave system, the sand tumbling in until it could come no further. They must have come in through there because the rest of the cave seemed to be nothing but bone-like material. Absently he wondered if it could actually be the bones of a giant Hollow, if they even left things like bones if they were only spirit creatures.

He himself had bones; it seemed logical Hollows would as well and would have the potential to leave them. However that wasn't the important issue at hand and so he tore his eyes away from the cave walls to look back at the man who had helped him, more than he needed to or ever had considering he didn't owe him at all.

"Why are you helping me? Why take me to your home? You could just leave me up there you know, I'd find my own place to stay."

The look he was given made him feel like some kind of moron who'd failed at answering his teacher's question properly, especially when the answer had been written on the board all along if he had cared enough to look at it. He hated when people made him feel like that, failure was something he could hardly stand to tolerate. It always left a bitter ashen taste in his mouth, if that was possible.

"I would have thought that was rather obvious by now," the amusement in the Hollow's voice was even further disgrace to Hideaki and he almost wanted to stand up and leave then and there for it. He wondered if he was somehow able to read his mind because the mask-lips curled up in that way Hideaki was starting to realize meant he was darkly amused about something. "I did not bring you here so you could wander off on your own and become the meal of some passing Hollow. That would have been a complete waste of time looking after you and bringing you here."

It didn't answer his question at all and the Hollow surely must have known that, it only added to the irritation grating on his patience. "So what did you bring me here for?" he bit out as he scowled up at him, getting onto his knees so he wouldn't be lying on the floor in a position of defenseless weakness, something he hated. His legs felt weak after the choking incident and he wasn't sure if they would hold him up so he'd rather stay on his knees than fall over and make a fool of himself.

"I brought you here…" the Hollow said slowly, probably enjoying causing such tension with how he drug his words out and let them dangle in the air between them as one would dangle a cat toy in front of a cat and wait for it to go wild, "so that you would become my charge."

The words tumbled through the air and danced around his head, his face twisting in confusion. He wasn't a credit card, and there certainly wasn't some kind of currency amongst a world of creatures that ate people and each other, there was far too little structure to even imagine such a thing, so what in the world did he mean?

"Well I don't think you're meaning money, but I can assure you there's no way you can get electricity out of me either. Or that there's even anything that would require it here."

Once again there was that bastard smile, the one that meant he'd missed the mark completely and had shown how foolish and naïve he was about the world. But Hideaki was only nine, he wasn't meant to know everything. Although considering where he was now, in the land of the dead, perhaps not even being a teenager yet wasn't an excuse. You were expected to know what you needed to know or you would die without any concern on anyone else's part.

"You must have never heard it referred to in the way I'm meaning, that would make sense seeing how young you are. These days from what I can see people don't take in others for apprenticeship, or at the very least it is not common." Hideaki simply stared at him, wanting to tell him to just get to the point already. "What I want from you is for you to stay with me and learn everything you need to know. Sort of like an apprenticeship, have you heard about that?"

Hideaki certainly had heard about that, but he could hardly understand why. There was nothing special about him, at least nothing that seemed important enough to catch someone's eye to the point they wanted to take him in like some kind of homeless child they'd found on the street.

"Uh, what exactly am I going to be… learning while I'm here?" he mumbled as his eyes sweeped over the cave walls, taking in the little imperfections and scratches in the wall where it looked like someone might have taken claws to it. It was like a cave where a bear would sleep, something he had never imagined as a home but it was such a sensible thing now that he was in one and there was a high chance he was going to be living here for quite a while.

He wondered how long Hollows lived; whether they would die of old age just like regular people did. The rules of the spirit world were something he didn't know, it wasn't like there was a book each new person was able to read through to understand. In this life it was sink or swim in a never-ending ocean.

The Hollow stood and walked to one of the walls, running his fingers over a deep scratch in the wall, staring silently into it as though it held all the answers to every question he could ever ask. "I want to teach you how to survive in this world, and I hope to teach you how to control those powers you have. I don't know if you can evolve like a Hollow can, since you're a Plus, but if it's possible I would like to see how far you can go."

There was an ocean of subtle things that weren't being said, something in the Hollow's voice was warm. And then it hit Hideaki like a bull, struck him in the stomach as hard as if someone had snapped off his horn and drove it through him.

His companion didn't have the chance to evolve further, he'd said so himself. Hideaki had taken that away from him because he'd bitten him when they had tried to kill each other, and even though he hadn't known what he was doing at the time it was still horrifying to remember. How he'd lost control like that and the bloodlust had driven him to nearly kill something else, even if it had been trying to kill him at the same time.

That was something he could never take back no matter how much he wanted to, and it would forever follow and cling onto his elder companion's life, leeching what it could off him and leaving him stuck at this level of power. Never to evolve further, never to get stronger in the eternal power-struggle that ran this world and everyone within it.

He took in a deep breath, pressing his hands together as he clasped his fingers around each other tightly, feeling the pulse of his dead blood rushing through his body. "I'll stay with you then," was what he managed to choke out through the overwhelming feelings running rampant throughout him.

There was nothing else he needed to say when those golden eyes turned towards him and stared at him with an intensity he hadn't seen in them since they met. In those eyes was something he didn't understand, some kind of silent communication that his companion understood but he himself was left floundering and wondering what was going on here and then the connection was broken as the elder smiled again and looked away from him.

Suddenly he was able to breathe again and he wondered when during the staring contest he'd stopped.

"What is your name?" It was a question he was not prepared for and he stared wordless at the elder who was once again watching the wall, except it was a different wall this time which didn't have any claw marks on it.

He wanted to say he didn't know how to answer that question, but no matter how much hurt ached in his chest and how acid rose in his throat as nausea swamped through him and almost made him puke he couldn't deny he knew the answer to it. As much as he hated how he'd been forgotten and abandoned he was still part of the family, whether his family wanted him to be or not.

"Kurosaki Hideaki," he breathed, closing his eyes as the words danced in the air around him and sunk back into his skin. He was a Kurosaki and he would forever be one, he'd been raised by his mother and he had grown up in that household which would in some way forever remain a home to him. But this was his home now and his old life was like the sludge in the pathway that had brought them here, it would cling to him and try to stay with him but eventually it would slide away and return to where it was meant to be.

"Kurosaki?" the sharpness in his friend's voice made him open his eyes to look at him. The calculating look in those golden eyes made him nervous, flighty as though he needed to get out of there right now. Whatever lurked behind those eyes was not friendly towards that name and he worried if that would turn against him and he would be attacked just as he was in the forest last night.

However the attack never came and those eyes turned back to their normal blandness. He felt like some kind of crisis had been averted although he didn't understand what had happened, just like he hadn't understood the connection between their eyes earlier. It was there still, lurking underneath the surface but the claws it had gripped him with weren't sinking in.

"You're a Kurosaki, I see. How very interesting." What exactly was "interesting" about it wasn't explained, but he got the feeling there was something big he was missing out on. Was there something special about his family that he didn't know? Whatever it was his companion was grinning in that dark way, something he'd seen villains in television shows do before something bad happened to someone. He only hoped that someone wasn't him.

"Vorabeil."

The strange nonsense word out of his companion's mouth caused him to stare confusedly at him, fingers twitching against the hem of his shirt, the stupid orange shirt that must look utterly hideous on him as it clashed against the paleness of his skin. He shuddered to think what it looked like against the whiteness of his hair, whereas it had once gone quite strikingly with his once-orange hair. He hadn't stared into the mirror in his house long enough to remember what it looked like, the only thing that stood out to him even now were those wicked-sharp horns still on his head and those haunting demon eyes his friend shared.

"My name, it is only fair that since you gave me your own name I should give you mine."

And with those words there was once again some heavy connection in the air as they stood and looked at each other, something deep and primal Hideaki couldn't understand. What he did know was they were both smiling just like he and his father had once smiled at each other while sharing in a private joke. A joke that would make his brother puff out his cheeks because he wanted to know what it was and his mother would look on with a fond smile of her own as her family bonded in ways she could only watch and be proud of.

This wasn't what he expected of his afterlife, smiling like a lunatic with some person who had tried to eat him not just the night before, scaring him within an inch of his life and literally eating him from the inside out. But here, in this new home that meant more to him than his house ever had, that seemed to be a natural thing. Hollows tried to kill each other, and they had tried but had not succeeded. It seemed only natural the next step was this strange friendship.

And deep in his belly something gnawed at him, grabbing his attention and demanding to make itself known as a growl rose up from his stomach. Flushing bright at the noise and the amusement on his friend's face, Hideaki flicked his eyes to the ground and put a hand tight over his stomach, hoping it would stop making those noises.

"It seems that you're hungry," Vorabeil said cheerfully and it sounded like his fingers were tapping against the wall of their cave in a steady rhythm. "Then I'll show you how to get food, you're going to need to know this from here on out if you're going to live here."


End file.
